Tiger Reserves

Finally, we managed to pull through the much challenged fellowship media briefing on tigers and issues around tiger conservation, and not just pulled through but did quite a good job of it, as it turned out -- gauging from the feedback of the resource people, and of course the journalists who, I believe, need this kind of downpour of information to make them understand the issues in-depth.

Can you love tigers but hate forests? This is the question that troubled me as I visited the middle of India last fortnight. I was in Nagpur, where local politicians, conservationists and officials were discussing what needed to be done in this chronically poor and backward region endowed with forests and tiger habitats.

The Forest Rights Act of 2006—also known as the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act—came after considerable and bitter opposition from conservation groups.

1411 tigers left. So says the latest advertisement campaign of a new telecom company and the WWF. It is powerful. It plays to our emotions. But it does not tell us what is being done, or should be done. It does not tell us how we, the consuming classes, can be part of the solution to safeguard the tiger.